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HORRORS 



—OF THE- 



MODERN DELUGE! 



DESCRIPTIVE AND ILLUSTRATED REVIEW 



—OF THE- 




REAT Floods 



—OF THE— 



P3^i8gippi w^ ©pro ^ivE^^-«;a^^^ 






WALT. J. RAYMOND, 

"TRAVA." 

1882. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1882, by 
WALT. J. RAYMOND, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 






^' 



A. E. GOTTSCHALK & CO. 

Prjnters and Elect's. 

209 North Fourth Street, 

ST. I.OOIS, MO. 



PREFATORY, 

(O) 

The ensuing pages illustrate the horrors of the greatest 
deluge the history of the world records since the Chris- 
tian era. 

Over seventy-five thousand square miles of a fertile 
and productive country have been devastated and laid 
waste by the relentless waters. 

The illustrations are from the pencil of Mr. A. B. 
Greene, St. Louis' well known artist, who accompanied 
the Expedition during its entire trip. 

The reports herein published were prepared by Mr. 
Walt. J. Raymond (Trava), who visited the inundated 
country and witnessed the scenes as herein related. 
Being a graphic and forcible writer, this history of the 

MODERN DELUGE 

will be the most consecutive and interesting published. 

A. E. GOTTSCHALK & CO., 

Publishers. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 



CHAPTER I. 



The history of the world records but one Deluge. 

The history of the world, as it advances, will record 
that, in the time between January 21st and April ist, 1882, 
an unconquerable deluge swept over the Western Conti- 
nent, along the line of the Mississippi River, carrying 
famine, destruction and death throughout a country over 
75,000 square miles in extent. 

It will record the fact, that in a night the rushing waters 
deluged and drowned hundreds of helpless whites and 
negroes, who inhabited the low level of the Mississippi 
bottom lands. 

It will record the fact, that nearly all animal life through- 
out a country 800 miles in length, with an average width 
of 35 miles, was swept from existence. 

It will record the fact, that the houseless, naked tenants 
of those miserable apologies for homes, being driven from 
the floor to the roofs of their shanties, and from that last 
refuge to limbs of trees and floating driftwood, were 
passed by crowded steamers, unable to succor or relieve, 
and left to rot, in death, beneath the rays of a semi-tropic 
sun. 



6 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

Modern hi^ory, on this crisis in the every-day Hfe of 
the Southwestern country, will, among other things, record 
that the urgent needs from all directions, ranging over so 
vast a territory, would not admit of stopping private enter- 
prise to attend to individual cases of distress. It will ar- 
gue that the confusion attendant upon such a calamity to a 
country, temporally unjointed the philanthropic balance of 
their natures, and made them blind and deaf to the appeal- 
ing attitudes, the heart-piercing cries for succor that went 
up from sloughs, bayous and river bottoms for 800 miles 
along the Mississippi River. 

It will, these modern times, perpetuate in history, 
through the art preservative and the columns of the press, 
the heartless effrontry of speculative steamboat lessees, 
in their announcements that for $4.00 any number of hun- 
dreds of the citizens of a given city on the banks of the 
flooded districts can be treated to a view of the bloated, 
swollen and decomposing carcasses of man and beast 
along the line of the proposed trip. That $4.00 per 
capita will carry a crowd of a thousand over the watery 
sepulchre, beneath whose dirty, turgid surface possibly 
can be seen the horrors of that agonizing death which 
overtook the hundreds and thousands that perished in this, 
the modern deluge. 

Appended to these facts, in the history of the three 
months taken from the year 1882, will be found, if the 
chronicler of these times be truthful, delightful descrip- 
tions of various trips, each representing enthusiastic 
crowds engaged in feasting and gorging the innerman with 
rare viands and costly wines, as they sail the watery grave. 

If the field-glasses carried upon the occasion of these 
trips by beaux and belles could speak, they would recount 
a tale of horror now locked in the fair and brave breasts 
of these admiring crowds. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 7 

They could, with graphic vividness, depict the ghoul of 
despair sitting side by side of the shivering human beings, 
and the Hvid corpses, which are promiscuously piled to- 
gether upon nine-tenths of the shanties within five miles 
of the river's banks. They could tell of a waste of waters 
in all directions, as far as the eye could reach, surrounding 
tottering cabins and huts, upon the roofs of which are hud- 
dled three, five, and sometimes ten starving wretches, 
whose emaciated, blanched and shivering bodies are grap- 
pling with gaunt famine. They could tell, as they sweep 
the colorless horizon of this deluge, of floating, half de- 
stroyed anatomies of human beings, swollen to bursting, 
keeping company, in their southward trip with the current, 
with hogs, mules, cattle, dogs, and every conceivable liv- 
ing creature that had, before the death-knell of this deluge 
sounded in their ears, peopled the low lands of this fair 
country ; and still they sailed, sailed out onto the muddy 
bosom of the father of waters, with merry jest and laugh- 
ter-sparkling eyes. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Flood, Morning of January 230. 

Clear and warm. Two hundred miles below the junc- 
tion of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, at the little penin- 
sular which forms the extreme southern point of the State 
of Illinois, and upon which is built the city of Cairo, the 
morning of January 23d, 1882, broke as peacefully and 
calm as a New England Sabbath. 

The season was well advanced for the date it bore in 
the new year, and the budding foliage told of an early and 
thrifty opening of plantation life. The Mississippi River, 
which strolled by the grassy banks with languid flow, bore 
upon its bosom the peace of contented waters. 



8 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

One hundred miles below the junction of these two riv- 
ers the same quiet and undisturbed motion of the waters 
ran calmly by the cane knoll of its boundary. 

Fifty miles below the point of this meeting of waters, 
the swelling tide began to show signs of drift-wood and a 
hurrying pace. 

Twenty-tive miles below, and the banks began to feel 
the rise, while at the point of the meeting of the two rivers 
it is risinjr three feet an hour. 

The Ohio River, which has its source at the junction of 
the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, at Pittsburgh, Pa,, 
is pouring a flood of water into the Mississippi at Cairo. 

The small tributaries of the Mississippi, and its main 
artery, the Missouri River, are rising slowly from the 
effects of the deluging rains, extending over a period of 
nearly two months, and the melting of the enormous snow 
fields at the source of the Missouri, and are emptying 
three million cubic feet of water into the Mississippi River 
every hour. 

Telegraphs are being sent to all important points South, 
between Cairo and New Orleans. 

Cairo, January 23d, 1882. 
*' Unprecedented rise of river. Flood expected. Pro- 
tect your stock." 

Such was the tenor of dispatches sent every hour during 
the first thirty-six hours of the rise. But quicker, if pos- 
sible, than the electric spark, the mighty torrent of those 
two rivers met, entirely submerging the lower point of land 
which marks the terminus of the State of Illinois, and 
worked its way up the channel gauge to 47 feet 9 inches 
above low water mark. 

It swept everything before it. Cairo was seven-eighths 
under water one week after the rise began, and the 
confluence of the two rivers was estimated to be sixty 
miles wide. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 



A force of i,ooo men were employed by the Munici- 
pality of the city of Cairo to protect the levee along the 
city line, and no cessation was made in their work night 
or day for three weeks. All trains were stopped at this 
point, and communication with the outside world sus- 
pended from necessity. 

The horrors of the flood began to make themselves felt, 
as portions of shanties and more pretentious dwellings 
were seen floating by, on both the Ohio and the Missis 
sippi Rivers, at Cairo. They were heeled over, and bot- 
tom side up, with remnants of apparel cHnging to their 
creaking sides. It told a story of surprise and death. 

Cattle and hogs began to be seen on the two rivers Jan- 
uary 26th ; some with life, and struggling to sustain them- 
selves, but more, dead and swollen from long exposure in 
the water. 

The deluge was upon that fair country through which 
majestically sweeps the greatesf water course of the 
world. At intervals, for 900 miles down through South 
land, it tore away the embankments and levees as if made 
of straw. It swept out and beyond its boundaries until, 
in many places, it became 100 miles wide. It drowned 
hundreds of the inhabitants throughout the bottom lands 
ere they could get from their beds and flee to the high- 
lands. 

It hurried to an easy death thousands upon thousands of 
cattle, sheep and hogs, and entirely annihilated all poultry, 
rabbits and small game. Deer, bears, Opossums and wild 
cats were driven from the swamps of Arkansas to the up- 
land, where they were slaughtered by hundreds with clubs 
and any weapon of death. Mules and horses were stam- 
peded, to be again overtaken and drowned, in droves of 
hundreds. I saw forty-six dead mules, in one lot, thrown 
ashore by the receding waters at Blue Points, 100 miles 
south of Memphis, on March loth. 



lO THE MODERN DELUGE. 

The line of destruction and death was marked by flocks 
of those scavengers of Southern soil, the buzzards, as 
they gorged on the bloated carcasses of man and beast. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE START. 

I leave the city of Cairo February i8, at 12, midnight. 
The flood has now been on twenty-four days There 
is no abatement in its rise. 

With some danger and great difliculty, the special steam 
tug that is to convey us over the deluged country swings 
from her moorings at the Cairo Short Line wharf, out into 
the stream, and is hurried southward. We throw our line, 
and find the current registers thirteen miles an hour. 

The speed is momentarily quickened, until thirty min- 
utes out from Cairo we are making seventeen miles an 
hour. In forty-five minutes we can tally nineteen miles, 
and as we sweep round the bend between Columbus, Ken- 
tucky, and Belmont, Missouri, we register twenty-two 
miles an hour. We speed between the high bluffs o.f the 
Kentucky side, and the long, level stretch marking the 
present site of Belmont, and hear the roar of the flood as 
it quickens its depth and force. 

The elevator at Belmont stands out grim and spectral, 
as we are shot by it with a lightning rapidity. I have just 
time to recall the fact that this water way between the two 
States was foremost in the war of the Confederacy, as mark- 
ing the early battle-ground, if not the first in the West, 
where Gen. Grant attempted to establish a garrison and 
entrenchment on the Missouri side. The high bluffs in the 
hands of the Confederates overlooking the river, and 
directly facing Belmont, were mounted with 8-35 pound 
guns. General Grant's command did not stop long in 
Belmont. 



TEIE MODERN DELUGE. II 



The water has gained the higli grounds of both of these 
landings. A powerful niglit glass reveals the long, sinu- 
ous encroachment of this destroying element, as it wraps 
around and searches out the buildings, stock, and what 
animal life may exist in the levels along the bottoms. 

Three weeks later I repassed this point in the steamer 
City of Helena, and the water still surrounded both vil- 
lages. The damage to property and life must have been 
something fabulous. 

The situation is scarcely grasped ere the hurrying lights 
along the banks of both landings are mere specks in the 
horizon, and the broad sweep given the bosom of the 
Mississippi just below — south of the above locations — 
spread out before us like a sea. 



CHAPTER IV. 

COTTONWOOD POINT. 



STATION FOR GOVERNMENT SUPPLIES. 

This settlement extends along the banks of the river for 
a distance of about one mile, and contains about 200 inhab- 
itants. At the time of my arrival it was entirely under 
water. I counted forty dug-outs and canoes centered 
about a building submerged to its door-sills. Messrs. H. 
C. Garrett & Co., who conduct the store and post-office, 
stated that the water had fallen about three inches in the 
twenty-four hours previous to my arrival. The back coun- 
try, for a distance of eighteen miles, is from three to ten 
feet under water, and the cattle ranges are strewn with 
hundreds of dead carcasses. In many instances they 
were unable to get their hides. The inhabitants of Cot- 
tonwood were out of supplies, and were approaching a 



12 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

condition of destitution of an alarming character until 
aided by the Government. 

The steamer City of Helena took on refugees, cattle and 
hogs, to be landed up the river on dr}^ ground. 

LOUTWELL, 

two miles below, was filled with refugees from the back 
country. Water stood three and four feet deep on the 
first floors of several buildings I visited, and I was in- 
formed by those who were carried north on the steamer 
that such had been their condition for more than three 
weeks. 

AT HALE'S POINT, 

about twenty miles south of the above landing, there were 
fourteen houses under water, ranging from four to seven 
feet deep • the roofs of many of the squatters' shanties, 
being on y visible. The river at this point was estimated 
to be seventy-five miles wide. At 

BARSFIELD 

it was thought the river was forty-five miles in width. 

The beautiful estate, including all the houses, of Mr. 
Joe Carr, were about three feet under water. Mr. Carris 
famous in Southern history for his hospitality and genial 
manners, and his loss will be deeply regretted. 

SHUTE 26, 

a cut-off just above Ashelport, was running about fifty 
feet of water. 

Tuesday, March 14, at 3 150 in the afternoon, the steamer 
City of Helena was hailed by the special steam dispatch 
boat Safford, of the Globc-Dcmocrat, St. Louis, in charge 
of Mr. Spink, with an able corps of assistants, including 
Mr, Wm. F. Gore and Wm. A. Hobbs. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 1 3 

Dispatches were received by Capt. Fleming, to be for- 
warded from Cairo. 

Mr. Spink reported no high land between Tipton and 
Memphis. 

The Safford left Cairo Monday night, March ii, and 
was twenty-two hours out from that point when hailed. 

POWELL'S LANDING. 

A family of seven, consisting of five women and two 
men, with twelve head of cattle and three horses, were 
taken aboard here. No money. They were carried to 
Saxton and unloaded. 



CHAPTER V. 

NUMBER OF FAMILIES IN DISTRESS, EXTENDING OVER AN 
AREA OF lOO MILES. OSCEOLA, MISSISSIPPI COUNTY, 
ARK., WITHIN A RADIUS OF TEN MILES. 

] 

Belmont, Mississippi County, Missouri, 
James Bayou, " " " 

New Madrid, New Madrid Co., Mo. 
Bosse's Landing, Lake County, Tenn., - 
Ralfort, " " " 

Hathaway, " " " 

Yazoo, Pemiscot County, Missouri, 
Caruthersville, " " " 

Booth's Point, Dyer County, Tenn., 
Cottonwood Point, Pemiscott County, Mo., 
Hickman, Mississippi " Ark., 

Ashport. Lauderdale " »Tenn., 

Hale's Point, " " " 

Barrsfield, Mississippi " Ark., 

Elmot, " " 

From Tiptonville to Memphis, a distance of 162 miles, 
the Mississippi River is estimated to be seventy-five miles 
wide. 



"amilies. 


Persons. 


60 
10 


300 
60 


8 


750 
40 


20 


125 


10 


70 


75 
30 


266 


15 


75 


75 


450 


40 
15 


200 
80 


25 


75 


15 


75 


300 


1,500 



H 



THE MODERN UEIAIGE. 




Landing, Arkansas. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE GOVERNMENT RATIONS AT MEMPHIS SACKED BY 
WORTHLESS NEGROES INFESTING THE BACK COUNTIES. 

The appeal from the States bordering the line of the Mis- 
sissippi River, south of the Missouri and Illinois bounda- 
ries, for aid in the form of rations, clothing and shelter^ 



THE MODERN DELUGE. I 5 

was magnanimously responded to by the Government, cap 
italists and merchants. The magnificent steamers which 
ply these waters were loaded to the guards — under the 
direction of staff and line officers of the regular army — 
with coffee, cornmeal, flour, bacon, clothing, tents, etc., 
and stations for the distribution of these stores were opened 
at Memphis, Fenn., Little Rock, Ark., and at various 
points in the States of Louisiana and Mississippi. 

It is claimed by many prominent citizens, and also by 
some portions of the press of Western Tennessee, that the 
necessities of that State raised by the flood were not of 
such a character as to seek relief at the hands of the Gov- 
ernment. This may be traced to pride — commendable if 
you please — but a station for the distribution of food, tents 
and clothing was opened in the city of Memphis, Tenn. 

The scene which followed the opening of the doors 
beggars description. 

From all directions the scavengers of southern soil — the 
worthless darkey — flocked to this point and made clamor- 
ous complaints of unheard destitution, and demanded 
aid. 

The officers in charge not familiar with the sneaking, 
thieving nature of the majority of these colored tramps, 
were being sadly duped, when reputable citizens and the 
press of Memphis enlightened the Government's alms- 
givers, and a check was made. 

An instance of imposition, on the part of these vandals, 
is recounted, where a colored man, who was known to 
possess but one child and his wife, claimed nine children. 
Being told he might just as well jiaim a little more, and 
get something worth while, he nonchallantly, and without 
apparent effort, run his family up to fifteen members. This 



i6 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 



Planters and merchants along the line of the overflowed 
district positively assert that they are unable to obtain labor 
upon their farms, plantations, and in their stores, when 
offering $8.00 per month and board for the same. Work 
is the last thing they want. When forced to it from starv- 
ation's call, they work long enough to get well filled with 
edibles and a few dollars in the pocket, then they jump 
their benefactors, and seek the cane swamps to sleep in 
the sun, or the orgie of the cross-roads to soak their black 
hides in corn juice. 

It will take months to disabuse the minds of the colored 
people along the line of this distress, which reaches from 
the gulf to Cairo, 111., in regard to free rations. 

The sufferers are to ^e sympathized with and aided, and 
they are thousands ; but the vampires that invest the allu- 
vial bottoms of this famous river, when applying for assist- 
ance, should meet with the quick desert of arrest. 

AT COMMERCE STATION. 

Four days and eight hours from Cairo, and we have 
passed the rolling country contingent to the river bounda- 
ries along the States of Kentucky and Missouri. The 
greatest distress imaginable was found here. Starvation 
and flooded households, with drowned stock, were upon 
every hand. 

Such relief as we could command was extended and 
we proceeded on our way. 

About five miles below Commerce, three women and two 
men were discovered on the third floor of their dwelling. 
The roof had been dismantled, the rafters and cross-beams 
been placed diagonally across tlie main structure, and the 
furniture, consisting of a shambHng bedstead, discolored 
mattresses, and worn-out bed-clothing, had been pulled 
from the lower portions of the house onto this improvised 
platform. They had been in this condition for three niahts 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 1*] 

and two days. The remnants of a meal, consisting of 
bacon rine and a few well-picked ham. bones, were all the 
indications of food in sight. They stated that the water 
rose so rapidly they were unable to get out of the bottoms. 
In less than three hours from the first warning of the 
approaching flood they were surrounded by water, with an 
average depth of three feet, and in six hours from the time 
the flood struck them, they were forced to the roof of their 
building, and a surging sea, fifteen feet deep and appar- 
rently ten miles wide, swept past them at the rate of 12 
miles- an hour. The proprietor of this establishment in- 
formed me he was the owner of 23 head of milch cows 
and five mules that had stampeded, some of them gaining 
the high ground. Pointing southward, and a little to the 
right of our location, I was directed to look at a clump of 
trees swaying beneath the force of the current. There 
may have been eight or ten trees in this group, none of 
them larger in circumference than a man's arm. Fatally 
lodged and entangled in their trunks were four of the cows 
referred to, with horns locked in the branches ; several 
buzzards were contesting the ownership of the carcasses 
with flocks of crows. 

Reaching the tug, in the captain's gig, which he had 
courteously extended to me, we proceeded to a group of 
cattle standing neck deep in the river just below the 

0. K. LANDING. 

The report at the landing was that they had been con- 
fined in that condition for thirty-six hours. Hauling along- 
side, they were dragged on board. These beasts were so 
exhausted that they fell broad-sides to the deck and lay 
motionless. Provender was provided and offered, and re- 
fused by all but three out of the nine rescued. 

Five died before Blue Point was reached, where the 
living were landed and the dead carcasses were consigned 



l8 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

to the muddy stream, to be corralled by the starving tliou- 
sands south of this point, and devoured as a God-send by 
their captors. 

The river at this point and date was estimated to be 
seventy- five miles in width. 

BEND OF 14, 

"Doc. Smith," who is in charge of this landing, had 
five families, in all twenty-nine persons, living in his wood- 
boat. These people were only half clad, and had lost 
everything they possessed in this world but their lives. 

Squire La Duke, postmaster at 

hathaway's landing, 

was completely wrecked, escaping with his life on an im- 
provised raft, hastily nailed together, from portions of the 
wharf-boat. This, I learn, was accomplished while going 
down stream at the rate of ten miles an hour, and half the 
time up to his neck in water. He was rescued fifty miles 
south of Hathaway's Landing. 



CHAPTER Vn. 

"HORROR ON HORRORS HEAD." 

One of the most painful sights, surrounded by the hor- 
rors of a ghastly death, it has been my lot to witness in 
this voyage of over 800 miles on the bosom of this flood, 
was encountered while coasting along the low, wood- 
studded shore on the Arkansas side, in company with the 
first mate and two deck hands of the Steamer Gold 
Finch. The balance of my commission were in charge of 
the tug at Hathaway's Landing. In turning an abrupt 
bend in the overflowed district the danfrlin"; bodies of a 
man and woman, waist deep in the water, were noticed 



THE MODERN DELUGE. ig 

hanging from the limb of a huge oak. The eddying cur- 
rent, as it rushed and swailed round the trunk of the tree, 
twirled and twisted these victims of the avenging flood 
until it seemed as if they were dancing a demonical waltz 
to the roar of the water. 

The sight was sickening ! 

The starting eye-balls and protruding tongues, as they 
danced about through the action of the water, drove ter- 
ror to the hearts of the occupants of that yawl. It was 
human to cut them down and give them a Christian burial, 
but to approach them through the gathering darkness, to 
clasp their dead and reeking bodies, was something the 
superstition of the party would not allow. We will report 
it, and come on the morrow. They are dead, and beyond 
any earthly assistance. Such were the excuses hurried 
through our minds, and we drifted away southward with 
the swellincr tide. 

I cannot picture to my readers the horrors of that sight. 

As we left, the early moon stole in upon the scene, and 
bathed them in a saddened shroud of light. The waters 
whistled by our boat as it carried us farther away, singing 
a dirge to the hapless victims, who, crazed with their sur- 
roundings, ended their living horrors in strangulation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A REGION OF GLOOM AND HOPELESSNESS. 

On March 9, I visited Arkansas City, Arkansas. The 
trip was made in a skiff, rowed by two impoverished 
mulatto boys about fourteen years of age. The town, at 
that time, was from two to ten feet under water. 

In skirting the edge of the woodlands which bound the 
city on the west, I came across a half submerged house. 
Approaching an upper window, I discovered an old 
man, the father of the husband, who. with his wife and 



20 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

two children — one an infant — were crouching upon the 
hastily thrown together remnants of a bed. The son of 
the gray-han-ed sire, who bore the appearance and attitude 
of being completely broken down, remarked, upon being 
interrogated, in a hollow voice tremulous with exhaustion : 

" We did not expect a break in the levee. The other 
morning we awoke, and found water surrounding the house 
to a depth of two feet, and rapidly rising. Before night 
we were driven completely from the ground floor, and 
took refuge here. Believing that a break in the levee had 
caused the overflow, and thinking that other breaks would 
follow, and thus more equally distribute the water, I fool- 
ishly caused my family to remain here, I fear it is our 
tomb." 

" Had you provisions in the house?" 

" No ; we have eaten nothing in the last forty-eight 
hours." 

" Prepare at once to accompany me in this boat." 

The gleam of light which shot athwart his countenance 
at the possibility of being delivered from his grave, will 
be remembered by me as long as I tread this mundane 
sphere. 

The following day, when drifting southward with the 
current, a small knoll of dry land was encountered, upon 
which seven half-starved creatures were huddled together. 
The spokesman (>f the rescued party said: "We were 
unable to get out of the bottom, the flood was so sudden, 
and were driven on a run to this patch of dry land." 

This would have afforded relief for about twentv-four 
hours longer. I returned within thirty-six hours over that 
same spot in the steamer Belle of Memphis, and the angry 
waters had swept it from existence. 

There was in this party of seven, sitting apart and upon 
the water, looking off witli weary eyes and saddened face, 
an old man, unknown to his six captive comrades. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 21 

"I guess he's gone, boss," sententiously remarked a 
burly negro who was busy in holding together the rags 
which partly covered his nakedness.. 

"He's been carin' on all night 'bo\it his darter ; you 
speak to him, boss."' 

The old gentleman was lifted to his feet from his half 
recHning position. He was so faint from the lack of food 
he tottered unless supported. 

" I was living with my daughter, he feebly remarked, as 
he gazed about the scene, with eyes tilled with tears. 
" Have you seen her?" 

" Your daughter shall be cared for ; come with us." 

" But I cannot find her ; I have not seen her since that 
night the flood rushed upon us. Ah, my God, you could 
not have been so cruel as to take her from me !" And, 
burying his face in his hands, to shut out the sight of his 
daughter's face, as the conviction swept over him that she 
was drowned. 

" I'll tell you how it was," he nervously added, after 
rallying a little. 

" We did not have time to make arrangements ; the 
water rushed upon us. I called for my daughtgr, my 
Emily, my brown thrush ; for she could sing, gentle- 
men ; ah, you shall hear her — to follow me, as I jumped 
from the window where we were standing. When I 
reached the flood the terrific current carried me away like 
a feather. I heard my daughter scream as she leaped 
after ; I attempted to answer her, but I was strangled ; I 
was borne along by the waters. Striking a tree, I seized 
hold of it and clung to it ; lifting my head above the water 
I called to my daughter, but the mighty roar of that flood 
was the only response. Do you think she will come?" 

" Yes, in the other world she will come to you. 

And the old man settled again into that stolid, dreamy 
look, which told of a mind fast losing its hold upon the 
seat of reason. 



22 THK MODERN DELUGE. 

CHAPTER IX. 

The steam tug Flying Scud, on board of which was our 
special envoy, had up to this time traveled 900 miles, includ- 
ing its research arnong the bayous, sloughs and tributary 
streams of the Mississippi River below Cairo, 111. The mem- 
bers of this expedition over the flooded country have supped 
their fill on horrors which shocked the stoutest hearts, and 
unnerved men of steel. They have passed through a country 
that, fourteen days prior to January 21, 1882, had 
bloomed with nature's early foliage, and been peopled with 
a thrifty, intelligent working class and wealthy planters. 

And they still looked out upon a limitless sea of turbulent 
waters. North, south, east and west, occasionally relieved 
at the horizon by the budding tree-tops, there was an eddy- 
ing and ceaseless flow of this muddy torrent, and the surface 
of the mighty river was still dotted with the carcasses of 
dead animals and fragments of broken buildings. 

We continue to steam south. Relief is furnished three 
negroes, who are taken in an exhausted condition from a 
tree about one hundred yards from the banks of the Mis- 
sississippi. They have eaten nothing in four days. 

In a feeble voice they recite the struggle they made to 
rescue others of their class, a half mile distant in the interior, 
where they said the water was four feet deep when they left, 
forty-eight hours before. 

Becoming exhausted from their efforts, they are finally 
forced to abandon their humane exertions, on account of the 
rising water, when they embark in a dug-out and start for 
Pomt Clear, six miles distant. The frail boat is caught in the 
current, overturned, and they swim to the refuge from which 
they are taken. Twenty-four hours more, and they would 
have perished from exposure and hunger, and swelled the 
list of mortality, whose verdict is " drowned by the flood." 

HELENA, ARKANSAS. 

A city of 2,000 inhabitants, is from two to eight feet und'^r 
water. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 23 

This condition of affairs is due to the back water. 

Business is paralyzed. 

Boats of every description are carrying hundreds north 
and south to the highlands. Poultry, dogs, and household 
animals and pets sweep by the curbs of this once handsome 
city, and are hurried away to their death. Wild deer and 
coons have been forced into the city by the back water, and 
swim about the streets, giving vent to piteous wails of fright. 
They are clubbed to death by enterprising speculators, 
skinned upon the roofs of stationary buildings, and their 
hides sold to fur dealers, who seem to have instinctively been 
forewarned of the situation, and flocked to the deluged coun- 
try in hundreds.. 

Of course the most dire distress reigns throughout this 
region of country. Government supplies are furnished, but 
there is hunger and exposure for hundreds in and about an 
area of this city twenty miles in extent. 



CHAPTER X. 

STARVATION AND DEATH. 

The following special has been handed me by a staff 
representative of the Times- Democrat of New Orleans, bear- 
ing date, Memphis, March loth, which says, of the country 
south of the point from which I am writing, " * * * 
As an example of how thousands below here are subsisting, 
the following instances are cited : Capt. J. Ferd. Rogers, one 
of the largest planters in Walnut Bend, has water from two 
to six feet deep all over his farm. His residence, which is 
known as White Hall, being one of the handsomest in the 
county, has water sixteen inches over the first floor. His 
family were brought here, but his hands, to the number of 
120, remain on the place. They all live in the stable lofts, 
and do their cooking on the roofs of their cabins. At Charles 
O. Faber's place, also in Walnut Bend, the negroes there, to 
the number of eighty, are living on the roofs of their cabins 



24 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

and in the gin-house loft. They are provided with provisions 
from here, which are taken to them in skiffs and dug-outs. 
The Clayton place, Walnut Bend, owned by W. A. Gage, 
has about lOO negioes on it. They too are living in the gin- 
house and in the upper stories of their cabins. This place 
was considered above overflow for thirty years, and when the 
back water from the St. Francis River began flooding the ad- 
jacent farms, planters brought their mules to the high grounds 
on this farm, but the present overflow has wiped out all the 
marks of previous years, and the water is now two feet deep 
over the highest land on the farm, and all the mules of the 
country around were brought to Memphis to keep them from 
drowning. J. T. Fargason, another large planter in Walnut 
Bend, has 200 negroes on his place who are cooped up in 
the gin-house and on the top of their cabins, with water all 
around to the depth of four feet. J, W. Rogers has seventy- 
five negroes on his farm in the same neighborhood, all living 
in a like manner. Three were drowned yesterday by the 
capsizing of a dug-out. J. N. and J. W. Falls have a farm 
in Walnut Bend, on which there are about 125 negroes, who 
sleep in the upper story of the gin-house and in the stable 
loft. Jesse Forrest, another planter, has 100 negroes on his 
plantation, who are similarly situated. Frank Rogers has 
seventy-five negroes on his place who live in his gin-house. 
Bent Dupuy has seventy-five negroes, all living in stable lofts 
and the upper story of his gin-house. At Dillard & CoflSn's 
place, near Delta, there are 180 negroes living in the gin- 
house. The cooking is done on a small strip of levee just in 
front, and the provisions thus cooked are taken in dug-outs 
to the gin-house. J. R. Jeffries, near Glendale, has 150 ne- 
groes on his farm, who are living in stable lofts and in the 
gin-houses. On Jacob Thompson's place, between Glendale 
and Delta, there are 250 negroes living on the roofs of their 
cabins and the gin-house and stable lofts. What is true of 
these is also true of every farm between Memphis and Green- 
ville, Miss. It reminds one of so many black birds, seemg 
the negroes on the roofs of their cabins. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 25 

At Rosedale, the county site of Bolivar County, Miss., 
there are but three famihes remaining. W. C. P. Jones, the 
proprietor of the hotel, hves in the second story with his wife 
and two children. The water is two feet deep on the ground 
floor, and he makes his entrances and exits from the building 
by means of a dug-out, which he paddles through the main 
hall and half-way up the stairs leading to the second story. 
The water rose so suddenly in the house of Mr. Oliver Alex- 
ander, a merchant of Rosedale, that he sought shelter in the 
Masonic lodge-room with his wife, and luckily, too, for both . 
his storehouses and dwellings were completely submerged. 
Mr. Alexander is quite sick, but is being carefully nursed by 
his heroic little wife, who remains with him. George P. Mel- 
choir, sheriff of the county, also has his family with him. 
The water is up to the ground floor, and his residence was 
on the highest land in Rosedale. The other inhabitants of 
the place have gone and are now refugeeing in Memphis and 
Helena. 

The country between here and Madison, on the St. Francis 
River, is covered with water to the depth of ten feet, and the 
inhabitants are living in the second stories of their dwellings. 
Hundreds of negroes are on the high ridges, but have no 
shelter, and it is a difficult matter to reach them with provi- 
sions. They subsist on the dead carcasses of cows that float 
in the current, and many have died of exposure. Cattle can 
be seen on little mounds that were buili by the Indians, 
where they are standing in water two feet deep and hourly 
dying of starvation. 

The extent of the great distress that now prevails will 
never be known, nor the loss of life that the w^aters have 
caused. Each day adds to the story of suffering, and the 
end is not yet." 

We pass down and over the fertile and renowned 

BIG CREEK BOTTOM LANDS, 

south of Helena. Here, I learn thai two women had been 



26 THE MODERN DEI>UGE. 

confined — one upon a raft and the other in a gin-house, after 
they had been driven from their homes by the flood, without 
the shghtest comfort known to the civilized world, the wind 
cutting mercilessly around them. The mothers were hardly 
half clad, and had no garments at all for the little ones; no 
fire, no food to be had under any circumstances ; the swift 
current of the overflow rushing, and anxious eyes looking 
for rescue from all directions in general and none in particu- 
lar, the water in the meantime rising rapidly, adding to the 
despair which had already wellnigh culminated. The scene 
was one that pen could not describe faithfully. 

These people generally lost all their personal property, 
even most of their clothes that were usually worn, the water 
coming so rapidly they were glad to have an opportunity to 
save themselves. If they are not entitled to the aid of the 
Government it would not be possible to find a single deserv- 
ing object throughout the length and breadth of creation. 

Supplies were issued to-day, for five days, to 1,149 people 
by the sub-committee in this city. 

Returning to Memphis to forward dispatches, I found 
the following dispatch to Gen. Beckwith, of the Commissary 
Department at St, Louis, dated Memphis, March 13, and 
signed Capt. J. S. Loud : 

" I have just arrived here. I found Pemiscot County, Mo., 
in a distressing condition, being almost entirely submerged, 
and about 1,200 people entirely destiute. The supplies sent 
to Gayoso are being carefully distributed, and will last until 
about March 25. More should be sent there. The people 
will be in just as bad a condition when the water goes down. 
The Government, to prevent starvation, should care for them 
at least until May i. About fifty people are destitute at 
Hathaway, 150 at Tiptonville, 200 at Hale's Point, in Ten- 
nessee, 1 50 at Bayfield Point, and 1,500 in the vicinity of Osce- 
ola, Ark., are destitute and badly in want. Some stores have 
been received at Osceola, but thev are insufficient." 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 2*J 

And the following was received by the same gentleman 
Irom Capt. Lee, dated Memphis, Tenn. : 

" I returned here on Saturday night. My dispatch of the 
9th inst. falls short of representing the actual destitution and 
magnitude of the overflow. 

" If an additional appropriation. is made, 500,000 rations of 
meal and meat should be sent here as soon as possible, in 
large instalments, for sufferers in the State of Mississippi. 
This is in addition to any rations that may not yet be sent 
from the first appropriation. Destitution is general and in- 
creasing. There are 9,000 destitute persons in Bolivar 
County alone. My estimate will carry the sufferers through 
to April 10, and possibly the flood may subside by that time, 
so that the sufferers can begin work." 

Capt Lee was directed by Gen. Beckwith to take charge 
of the little steamer Anita, which left here yesterday, and 
proceeded at once on the mission designated for her — the 
picking up of parties of destitute people in the flooded dis- 
tricts, and taking them to dry land and shelter, where they 
can be comfortably cared for. 

Secretary Lincoln telegraphed Gen. Beckwith that if he 
had not boats enough at his command more would be provi- 
ded. The Secretary has also ordered the largest steamer at 
Little Rock to proceed at once to Memphis and report to 
Capt. Leland, and Capt. Lee will take the little steamer Anita, 
on her arrival at Memphis, and go up the Yazoo and Sun- 
flower rivers, and distribute supplies and render what assist- 
ance he can to those in need. 



CHAPTER XL 

ENTIRE CITIES SWEPT FROM EXISTENCE. 

The Government has done all that is possible in the time. 
I have seen the Commissariats in charge of the commissary 
supplies at various points in the river between Memphis and 
Vicksburg, issuing their rations to the famished thousands 



28 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 



without stint or question, rather than let a genuine case of dis- 
tress pass unheeded, in refusing those possibly taking advan- 
tage of the situation, and imposing upon their benefactors. 




Mouth of the Yazoo River. 

From Vicksburg to New Orleans, a distance of 381 miles, 
it can be safely stated that the country for a distance of sixty 
miles in width is entirely submerged. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 29 

Austin, in the State of Mississippi, seventy miles south of 
Memphis, is swept from existence. 

Steaming over the levees, my commission enters the city, 
and make soundings from the third story of the court-house, 
which occupies the main street of that once prosperous town. 

The water is found to be 

TWENTY-FIVE FEET DEEP, 

Houses that once had a local foundation were found half a 
mile distant, and the novel spectacle of entire families cook- 
ing upon rafts, the roofs of their houses, and in flatboats, was 
to be seen and encountered on every side. 

DELTA, 

opposite the city of Vicksburg, is entirely submerged. An 
easy sail was made through the principal streets of this town, 
and reports from the few inhabitants remaining to mourn the 
loss of their entire substance, was to the effect that the entire 
country for miles, in all inland directions, was flooded to the 
depth of from two to four feet. 
Mr. J. C. Frank's large estate, 

AT BLEDSOE.S LANDING. 

hitherto supposed to be above any possible overflow, is 
flooded to the depth of two feet. Corn cribs built on a slight 
elevation are ten inches under water, and the stock, consist- 
ing of several hundred mules, was saved with great difficulty. 
The country adjacent to, and at the junction of the 

TALLAHATCHIE, SUNFLOWER, YAZOO, AND BIG AND LITTLE 
BLACK RIVERS, 

is covered with water from three to twenty feet deep. 

Hailing the steamer Dean Adams, to forward dispatches to 
Vicksburg, I encountered the sad spectacle of starving ne- 
groes. A colored woman, Martha Green, with two children, 



30 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

were refugees on the steamer Dean Adams, and was, among 
many others, flying from the devastation of the flood near 
Riverton. She was utterly destitute, and presented a sad 
picture, as, with tattered garments and sunken cheeks, she 
and her children roamed up and down the deck, not knowing 
what course to pursue. When the overflow first came, carry- 
ing off their little log cabin, and with it all their personal 
effects, the husband had gone on a boat to Memphis, as he 
said, to procure assistance ; but that was the last seen of him, 
and he has either been drowned, or has left to rid himself of 
his starving dependents. Some ladies, cabin passengers, took 
the poor creatures in hand, and provided provisions and shel- 
ter for them. The experience of this poor woman is the ex- 
perience of thousands who are to-day without means of their 
own to support themselves for the coming few weeks, when 
the bottoms will again be tillable. 



CHAPTER XII. 

DEATH ON ALL SIDES. 

Embarking again on the afternoon of March 14, we steam 
direct for the 

YAZOO RIVER,' 

397 miles south. As we cast off our moorings, we enjoy the 
opportunity of signaling the now famous steam tug dispatch 
boat of the Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, under the directions 
of the brilliant correspondent Of that daily, Mr Alf. H. Spink. 

Norfolk, De Soto, Commerce and Austin, once thriving 
centres for plantation supplies, are repassed. 

They are still from three to five feet under water. 

The rays of that afternoon sun glittered along the rippling 
current of water sweeping through their streets. 

There were no living indications of former life. 

Several beef carcasses, and the gaunt skeleton of a favor- 
ite hunter, are seen lodged against some half dismantled 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 3I 

outhouses, that have choked up a bend in the street. Un- 
pleasant odors are palpably distinguishable for a distance 
of ten miles along the Mississippi boundary. 

There is no marked change in the river boundary of the 
city of Helena. 

At midnight we reach 

friar's point, 

and are hailed from the shore by a signal of distress. On 
landing we find the improvised raft which has been an- 
chored at that point, floating the shrunken and already de- 
composed remains of 

THREE WOMEN, 

who had been brought in from the bottoms about noon of 
the day previous. 

The Flying Scud being the first indications of any relief, 
accounted for the condition of affairs here. 

If I were to state that I had positive proof that the starv- 
ing wretches confined upon this flatboat, with the skeleton 
remains of those three women, had attempted to check 
famine by feeding on the corpses, would it be believed ? 
But I record it here as a fact. 

Cannibalism, heightened by the chilling horrors of their 
surroundings, had been actually perpetrated on the bosom 
of the Mississippi River. The bodies were consigned to 
the waters. 

Cornmeal and bacon were left to temporarily appease 
their hunger. 

They devoured the bacon raw. 

It was with difficulty we succeeded in getting loose from 
the raft. A Babylonian torrent of sound floated out upon 
the waters after us, as our steam whistle shrieked the pro- 
longed signal of distress, understood by all steamers plying 
these waters. 



32 THE MODKUN DELUGE. 

At 4:30 on the morning of March 15th, we came up 
with a raft floating one white man and three negroes. From 
the white man, whose name I could not learn, came the 
startling intelligence that John Patterson, a well-to-do 
farmer, who resided with his wife and three children four 
miles in the interior, lost all his stock, consisting of twenty 
mules and about 100 head of cattle, by drowning. This 
so worked upon his mind, seeing the results of many years 
of labor swept away in a single night, that he lost his rea- 
son, and is now a raving maniac. 

" Are you sure of tliis?" I asked. 

"Well, I reckon I've worked for him befo' and since 
the wa\ 

A member of my crew, as he afterward remarked, felt 
like dispatching this craven on the spot, for deserting his 
associates in the hour of their extremity. 

" Well, Mr. James Collins, who lives at Benhaurd's 
Landing, says," continued my informant, " that he had 
occasion the other day to go near Patterson's house, and 
as he was passing by in his dug-out was hailed by Mrs. 
Patterson, who cried to him for food. She and her chil- 
dren had been in the upper story of their dwelling with her 
crazed husband for two days, without anything to eat." 

Who can picture a scene more sad and sorrowful than 
this, and yet it is but one of hundreds that the devastating- 
waters have wrought in their destruction of many homes 
that but a few short weeks ago were happy and joyous ones. 

APPALLING DISTRESS. 

It is authentically arrived at that counties with a popula- 
tion of 

70,000 INHABITANTS 

are submerged. Tunica County, Miss., has 

5,000 STARVING AND DESTITUTE 



THE MODERN DEEUGE. 33 

men, women and children. The loss in stock along the 
line of the river, loo miles north and south of Vicksburg, 
Miss., can be classed under, the term, annihilation. 

The carcasses of 300 dead cattle were washed ashore 
at Vicksburg in fourteen hours, and 413 at Greenville, 
Miss., in eighteen hours. A brisk trade has been inaugu- 
rated on the shores of the lower Mississippi in coralling 
dead cattle, skinning them, and selling their hides. 

The affluvia arising from the decaying animal ^oais is 
discernable for hundreds of miles. What the condition 
will be when the torrid heat of summer sets in throughout 
that section of country can better be imagined than writ- 
ten. 

Death will float in the atmosphere of this fair valley and 
miasmatic ailments will continue the scourges until frost 
again returns. 

BEACK RIVER DISTRICT. 

The topography of this country is peculiar to the lowest 
levels {.ributary*to the immediate boundaries of the Missis- 
sippi River. The normal condition of Black River, which 
is little less than a stream in August, can be classed among 
the stagnant water courses of the country, but the rich 
alluvial bottom lands adjacent to the river are good for two 
bales of cotton to the acre on any average season. 

A. E. Gottschalk & Go's commission reached the mouth 
of Black River March i^th. 

It was a sea of water. 

As far as the vision carried, nothing relieved the monot- 
ony of the wide-spreading disaster which has settled along 
this coast for 600 miles. 

Ruin, waste and total destruction were visable at every 
turn of the eye. 

The swollen current, for miles along its interior course, 

was laden with the wrecks of hundreds of housholds, 

swept away by the avenging flood. 



34 THE MOnKRN DKl.UiiK. 

The distress apparent along the bottom lands, on the in- 
terior ot this river, was appalling, I assert, with positive 
knowledge of the fact, but for the timely arrival of the 
Times-Dcmocraf s expedition, which henceforth can flank 
the celebrated enterprise and charitable standing of New 
York's famous journal in matters of meeting public dis- 
tress, hundreds would have gone to their future rewards 
that now live to praise the life-saving hospitality of that 
New Orleans daily. 

AN ISLAND OF SNAKES THREE PEET DEEP. 

Just south of Helena, on the Arkansas side, on the morn- 
ing of March i6th, we discovered what appeared to be a 
moving island. 

Our course was directed to bear towards this phenominal 
appearing ridge of moving earth. When at a distance of 
about one-quarter of a mile, strange and confused sounds 
reached our ears, in effect like a series of prolonged hisses. 
The glass was brought to bear upon the trembling surface 
of the earth, when we discovered that it was one solid 
mass of 

SNAKES, 

three feet deep. They had been driven irom the bottoms 
to this strip of elevated land, and accumulating for weeks. 

Shocking as the sight was to nervous constitutions, this 
battle among the slimy, crawling representatives of the 
evil one was watched with eagerness and not without some 
interest. We steamed close enough to get a perfect view 
of the surroundings, and found that the snakes held pos- 
session of a knoll about one-eighth of a mile in length and 
lOO feet wide, packed to the depth of not less than three 
teel. They were writhing and coiling about each other 
in the most furious manner, snd lighting to the death. 

The shores alang this ridge of earth were strewn with 
their dead, and the surface of the current south of this 



THE MODERN DEI.UGE. 35 

point was dotted thickly with the lifeless remains of adder, 
moccasin, water, whip and black snakes. 

Many of them were fifteen feet in length and the size of 
a man's arm. 

To have encountered anything of this kind along the 
banks of the Amazon, or upon the elevated mounds in the 
jungles of African swamps, which are subject to inunda- 
tion from the sea and rivers of those countries, would have 
been something expected, but on the bosom of the Missis- 
sippi, upon which floats the traffic of a country ranging 
over a boundary hundreds of thousands of miles in extent, 
it was, to say the least, novel. 

Upon reaching Vicksburg, Miss., now famous in civic 
circles as formerly in military affairs, I find that Governor 
Lowry is on a brief trip to Jackson, Miss. 

I am indebted to the correspondent of the Globe-Demo- 
crat for the appended dispatch from Gov. Robert Lowry 
to the following gentlemen, who form a local relief com- 
mittee at this point : 

" Jackson, Miss., March 17. 

To Messrs. Butts, Richardson, Robbins and others, Vicksburg, Miss. : 

" Gentlemen. — I had just received your telegram when 
your messenger arrived with your letters. The contents 
of your letters, and the information given me personally 
by him, advise me fully of the condition of affairs in Delta. 
The steamer City of Yazoo has a large capacity, and could 
bring out all the people, perhaps, w^ho are in imminent 
danger, as well as the stock liable to be drowned. I sug- 
gest that you send this boat at once, and let her carry along 
every appliance that would probably relieve the people 
from danger of being drowned. There may be lakes and 
bayous where people live that a boat cannot reach. By 
all means, people so situated should be relieved. Have 
some thoughtful, true-hearted men on the boat who are 
familiar with the location, to send out skiffs and '' dug- 
outs,"' and 



36 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

SAVE THE PEOPLE 

that are in danger and cannot help themselves. By means 
of life-boats, yawls and dug-outs they can reach almost 
every one who is in imminent danger of loss of life. I 
suggest that no living human being be left to die, if any 
trouble or expense will save his life. People first, and 
then stock. 

'• I can not go down to-morrow, but will wait here and 
receive and answer telegrams, and advise all to communi- 
cate with me here at Vicksburg. I will remain at Vicks- 
burg as long as may be neceesary, and if, after a confer- 
ence with you gentlemen, I can contribute anything in the 
accomplishment of what we all desire, I will go in person 
to any district of the overflowed districts. I further sug- 
gest that the most trusty and thoughtful person, and the 
one most familiar with the country to be visited, be placed 
in command of the boat mentioned. If Commodore Par- 
isot himself would go along, he would, no doubt, accom- 
plish more than any one else. I feel very great solicitude 
about the whole matter, and am ready to do anything in 
my power to aid in giving relief. I have telegraphed Major 
Hemingway. to come here by rail and go on to Vicksburg, 
that he may more fully understand the entire field of oper- 
ations. The distress on the smaller rivers ma}', and I 
think probably should, induce him to change his quarters 
from Memphis to Vicksburg, as he would be in easy com- 
munication with the districts on the Mississippi River and 
the smaller rivers. I learned from Mr. Piatt that all boats 
are out except the City of Yazoo, and I have in this letter 
ventured an opinion as to what she should do, which, how- 
ever, is subject to change or modification by you gentlemen 
who are on the spot. I only repeat, in conclusion, that I 
will give whatever substantial aid is in my power, and will 
be in the city on Saturday morning's train. 
" Very truly 3'ours, 
(Signed) "Robert Lowry." 



THK MODERN DEI.UGK. 37 

Cats' Island, Bennett's and Luce's Landing, and Points 
Peter and Moore, are entirely submerged. Capt. Satter- 
lee, of the United States army, states that it is his opinioa 
there are g 

THREE THOUSAND DESTITUTE PERSONS 

in Disho and Chicot Counties. 

The postmaster at Good Hope lost fifteen cows and 
one hundred hogs. 

The town of Lacona, Arkansas^ and Terrence, opposite 
the mouth of White River, are tenantless, and have the 
appearance of being some distance out in tht Mississippi 
River. 

The store at Milliken's Bend, devoted to the general 
merchandise incident to plantation demands, was carried 
by the current back into the country a distance of two 
miles. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

NEARING NEW ORLEANS. 

The Landry Crevasse, Ascension Parish, is sixty feet 
wide. A large force of laborers from adjoining planta- 
tions are endeavoring to close it. The Story Crevasse, be- 
low Baton Rouge, is regarded beyond control. It is ten 
feet deep and 200 feet wide. The water from this crevasse 
will flow into Ship Island Canal and Lake Borgue, adjoin- 
ing. There is little damage except to Story's plantation, 
where there were 500 acres of stubble and 250 acres of 
plant cane. This w-ill doubtless be almost entirely de- 
stroyed. The ends of the levee on each side of the break 
at Live Oak Grove Crevasse have been secured, and the 
belief is that the break will be closed. Small breaks in the 
levees between New Orleans and Baton Rouge are being 
closed. A number of back levees are reported broken 
about Lake Concordia and elsewhere. 



38 THE MODERN" J)ELUGE. 

The Secretary of the Board of State Engineers gives the 
following information concerning the crevasses m this State 
from the Arkansas line to the mouth of the river ; also on 
the bayous. Lafourche and Atchafala3-a and Ashton 
Crevasses have been open since 1867. They began near 
the upper line of Carroll Parish and extended into Arkan- 
sas, estimated length eight miles. In Madison Parish 

THERE ARE CREVASSES 

at Omega, Buckner, Marenza, Milliken's Bend, Delta, 
Beggs and Diamond Island Bend ; the last named has been 
open since 1867. In Tensas Parish, at Woodburn, Buck- 
ner, Point Pleasant, Ship's Bayou, Hard Times, Fordfield, 
Hardscrabble and Kemp ; in Concordia Parish, at Clare- 
mont and Glasscock ; the latter has been open since 1874. 
In Pointe Coupe Parish, at Morganzia and Pointe Coupe, 
the former open since 1874. ^^ Ascension Parish, at 
Landry Place. In St. John the Baptist Parish, at Bonnet 
Carre, open since 1874. ^" ^^- Bernard Parish, at Story 
plantation. In Plaquemine Parish, at Live Oak Grove. 
All tlie above are on the right bank of the Mississippi 
River, except Landf}', Bonnet Carre and Story, these three 
being on the left bank. There are four crevasses on the 
Atchafalaya — Suttons on the left bank, in Pointe Coupe 
Parish; Yellow Bayou and Upper Winn Track, in Avo- 
gelles Parish, and Lower Winn Track, in Landry Parish. 
The three last named arc on the right bank. There is also 
Crevasse Nine, on I^avou Lafourche. 

SURPRIS]-:J) in IJEJ) BY THE FLOOD 

Your commission has interviewed Mr. Wm. R. Smith, 
a seven-foot high sjiecimen from the Arkansas bottom lands, 
who arrived down yesterday from the vicinity of Helena, 
Ark. He left his wife and two children at the Morjran 
Ferry, and learning tliat a relief committee was organized 
at the Exchange, he wandered thither and requested a 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 39 

/ 

pass for his family to some point north, where he claims to 
ha\'e friends. He says the levee in his vicinity broke two 
weeks ago, during the night, after he had retired to bed. 
He was awakened by the baby crying, and jumping up, 
stepped into three feet of water that covered the floor. 
The door was forced in by the flood, and a plank that 
floated in was secured to serve as a bridge from the bed to 
a stairway leading to the upper floor, occupied by another 
family. He removed his wife and children and lay down 
on the upper floor. In less than an hour the water began 
coming through the floor, driving them to the roof for 
refuge. They gained the roof by cutting a hole through 
to the outside, and perched themselves on the ridge-pole, 
for protection, all through the stormy night. An hour after 
they sought the roof tlie water commenced lapping the 
eaves, and the waves, driven high by the storm, dashed 
over them, saturating them thoroughly. In the morning 
the entire party was rescued by neighbors, and, after giv- 
ing up all hopes of the water subsiding. Smith managed 
to secure a pass to New Orleans, and arrived here without 
any means of obtaining food or clothmg, which the family 
needed badlv, as they were shivering with fever and ague 
in the waiting-room of the Morgan Lme. The father said 
he wanted an overcoat worse than food or anything else. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 

FROM WASHINGTON, D. C, VIA NEW ORLEANS. 

The Secretary of War has ordered 300,000 rations for 
the overflowed sufferers, which are being delivered by the 
Louisiana Commissioners. Fifty thousand rations have 
been sent to the Atchafalaya. The rations issued for 22,000 
people for fifteen days will soon be exhausted. Forty 



40 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

thousand people are destitute within a radius of thirty 
miles. 

CLASS OF DESTITUTION. 

It would shock the hardened and desperate natures of 
the poor and destitute in the squallid quarters of any of 
our large cities, to experience the hardships and positive 
deprivation of the smallest necessities hourly undergone 
by the exposed and starving thousands along the banks 
of the Mississippi. 

There is already, at this early season, a torrid heat at 
noon-day which blisters the sight and drives the half- 
crazed occupants of the floating shanties mad with des- 
peration. 

It is like floating on a sea of glass. Hunger adds its 
stings to the remorse arising from forlorn hopes. 

The tattered rags secured in the hurried flight, upon 
the rush of waters, are soaked to shreds. Infants and 
children are comparatively naked. 

All are barefooted. 

The exposed parts of the bodies of the refugees, as 
they appe'ar when r,elieved, are blistered and parboiled 
by long exposure. 

With this physical condition of affairs we notice the 
indications of unsettled intellects. There is the leer and 
cowering of the broken minds which seem to demonstrate 
in their hopelessness, that anything will do if it is only 
dry and sheltered. They relapse into aheap of motionless 
bones and rags when left alone. There is also the bright 
and feverish glare of the hopeful, but aimless disposition, 
which exhausts itself in all directions without accomplish- 
ing any specific result. 

Women, fainting and helpless, are taken from rafts, gin- 
houses and roofs of sinking homes to linger and die from 
the great and unbearable physical strain they have been 
subjected to for weeks. And this character of suffering 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 4 1 

extends along the boundry of the lower Mississippi for 
hundreds of miles. 

Black River. 

We steam over the inlands at the junction of this 
river with the Mississippi, for a distance of 36 miles. 
The water has registered from 3 and a half to 9 feet the 
entire way. 

Hundreds of the best cotton plantations are here sub- 
merged to an average depth of 5 feet. 

Cattle, hogs and mules are piled up against trunks of 
trees, dozens in numbers, along this water course. Clouds 
of buzzards and crows hover and fight over their remains, 
which inocculate the atmosphere for miles with unbearable 
affluvia. There seemed to be nothing saved over this 
territory- All buildings were deserted and the stock was 
drowned. 

The Government Commission and the tireless philan- 
throphy of the Times-Democrat of New Orleans, were 
upon this scene of destruction when I arrived. It was 
like sailing over the ocean's mighty morgue. The muddy, 
unreflective surface of this torrent as it passed southward, 
gave no indications of the hidden death and desolation 
vailed in its hurrying tide. 

A pitiful scene of the helplessness of the wild animals 
which filled the forests and foot-hills of Arkansas, was 
witnessed on March 29th : The antlers of three deer were 
seen making for our boat. Upon reaching the side of the 
Flying Scud, the deer strove in vain to rest their fore-feet 
upon some solid and stationary portion of the boat. The 
cries sent forth by them, when their last hope had failed, 
were something to start the moisture of the heart. 
Their heaven-lighted eyes plead in dumb supplication for 
relief. 

They were assisted aboard. After rest and feeding 
they became as gentle and docile as kittens. 

It is estimated that at least one hundred 



42 tup: >roi)KRN i)K\AUiK. 

thousand people apply for rations. This number can not 
be supplied unless additional rations are received. Provi- 
sions will be shipped daily until all are supplied or stock 
exhausted. There being no funds at disposal, the T'unes- 
Deinocrat furnished the State Commissioner vvitli forage for 
distribution, and then bought a steamer for the Commis- 
sioner's use, stocking it with corn, oats, bran and hay for 
sufferers. East of the Ouachita River stock is reported 
to be dying by the hundred. Apprehension is felt that the 
people will not be able to pkmt a crop, even if the water 
recedes in time, on account of loss of stock. A large 
amount of stock is arriving here now. The number of 
refugees is not very large. The situation is critical at Tal- 
lulah, and a steamer and two barges have been sent there. 
Goodrich Landing asks for 2,000 rations. A thorough 
examination of all the levees will be made. The National 
Cotton Planters' Association shipped the bale of cotton 
presented for the benefit of the overflow sufferers to St. 
Louis, to be sold or rafBed. 

Water fl'om the Landry Crevasse is reported as encroach- 
mg on plantations in St. James Parish. Live Oak Grove 
Crevasse is probably closed. Breaks are reported at Hog 
Point ; also in the old Racovrell Levee, Point Coupee 
Parisli. The Airlee levee is not yet out of the hands of 
the contractor. It is expected to be almost completely 
destroyed. It was 14,180 feet long, and from seven to 
thirteen feet high. These crevasses will contribute largely 
to flood Bayou Mascar, Tensas, Black and Atchafalaya 
Rivers, until a decline of ten feet takes place in the river 
at Helena. , 

This decline is confidently expected by April ist. There 
is, however, twelve days of continual wretchedness to 
pass — days that will be fraught with famine, despair and 
death. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 



43 




OFFICIAL REPORTS. 

The following telegrams have been received by Assist- 
ant Commissary Beckwith, from army officers on duty in 
the flooded districts of the South : 

EAST CARROLL AND MADISON. 



44 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

ViCKSBURG, Miss., March 21. — Just arrived. Visited 
Pilcher's Point, Providence and Milliken's Bend, La. 
Found East Carroll and Madison Parishes in distressing 
condition ; 3,000 destitute in East Carroll, and 2,000 in 
Madison. No destitution at Pilcher's except a few cases. 
Have telegraphed the Secretary of War fully. Will go to 
points below to the mouth of Red River by first boat. 

(Signed) Loud, Captain 9th Cavalry. 

FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE. 

Washington, D. C, March 21. — To Beckwith, Assist- 
ant Commissarv General, St. Louis, Mo. : — Purchase 
500.000 rations for sufferers — bread and meat only — and 
send 100,000 to Hemingway, Commissary for Mississippi, 
at Memphis, Tenn., and 100,000 to him at Vicksburg, 
Miss., for sufferers in Mississippi, and 50,000 rations to 
Mangum, at Helena, for sufferers in Arkansa. 

(Signed) Macfeei.y,' Commissary General. 

from the anita. 

Twenty-five miles up Sunflower, Miss., Steamer 
Anita, March 19, via Vicksburg, Miss., March 21. — To 
Gen. Beckwith, Assistant Commissary General of Subsist- 
ence United States Army, St. Louis, Mo. : Since leaving 
Vicksburg have been in lakes, creeks, and over plantations ; 
have rescued and returned over 200 people. Yawls 
are now out bringing in the destitute from house tops and 
gin lofts. By dark to-day will have over 200 men on some 
large mounds one mile below here, and give them one 
weeTc's rations. All of them need tents for shelter. 
Flood is six to eight feet deep over the entire country, and 
rising seven inches a day. Large supply of tents should 
be sent to Vicksburg for distribution, and rations, as stated 
in my previous dispatches. Cattle drowning by hundreds, 
and many on mounds will die of starvation. Mules mostly 
saved. 

(Signed) J. M. Lee, Capt. U. S. A. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. ^5 

CENTRAL LOUISIANA. 

Monroe, La,, March 22, 18S2, 
Gen. A. Beckwith, Assistant Commissary General, U. S. 

A., St. Louis Mo. : 

Arrived here last evening, after having visited Delta, 
Tallulah, Delhi and Rayville. Distance traversed, seventy- 
three miles — fifty-nine of the distance I came 'in a skiff, 
over from three to eight feet of water. Country in a most 
deplorable condition. The loss of stock from being 
drowned and eaten to death by gnats is very great. The 
people, rich and poor, need food for such stock as they 
have been able to keep alive. If the water does not fall 
rapidly most of the horses, mules and cattle will be lost, 
as no means of transportation can be procured to move 
them away. I have not been able to discover a single case 
of actual suffering from hunger among the people, but 
have no doubt that much destitution exists, and that it will 
be general before many days. I will to-day complete my 
duty, and, after reporting, leave for the mouth of Red 
River, with a view of coming to St. Louis if the country 
has been examined. Have met Knower here. He reports 
all points on Red, Black and Ouachita Rivers up to this 
place inspected and reported upon. 

(Signed) S. C. Vedder, 

Lieutenant 19th Infantry. 



on the OUACHITA. 

Monroe, La., March 22. — I have cortipleted my report 
to the Secretary of War. The following are the main facts 
forwarded : About 4,000 people in the parishes along the 
Black and Ouachita Rivers will need aid until May i. 
About 2,500 of the number are now supplied until April 
I, 1,100 to April 10, 600 to April 5 ; balance need aid at 
once. The greatest distress is found in Caldwell Parish : 
least in Ouachita. The issue of meal is preferable to flour. 
Loss of stock will be serious for want of forage. I do not 



^6 tup: :\ioi)E[<n dki.ugr. 

advise more aid in Ouachita Parish below Monroe or Cald- 
well, above Columbia. 

Knower, Capt. U. S. A. 



MOREHOUSE PARISH, LA. 

Monroe, La., March 22, — -Examination complete of 
matters connected with overflow at this place. Three hun- 
dred people will need aid in this ward of Ouachita Parish 
for thirty days. In tiie adjoining ward of this parish 325 
people ask rations for thirty days, and an issue will be 
made to them at once by the State agent, from rations 
already received here from the Government. That part of 
Morehouse Parish in which Bastrop is situated will need 
assistance for 600 people for thirty days. I leave here this 
evening for tlie mouth of Red River, en route for Vicks- 
burg and St. Louis. S. C. Vedder, 

Lieutenant 19th Infantry. 



The appended dispatches were forwarded by special 
correspondents to various northern journals, and are here 
reproduced for their authenticity. Being unable to cover 
the enormous area devastated by the floods, I am obliged 
to rely upon the courtesy of special couriers of the many 
enterprising journals represented throughout the overflowed 
districts, to all of whom I desire to express mv heartiest 
thanks. 

» [Trava.] 



JoNESBORO, Craighead Co., Ark., March 15. 
To Judge Mangum, Supply Commissioner. 

Dear Sir : I would ask leave to state that at least 200 
families in Craighead County are in a destitute condition 
on account of the overflow. Their wants are immediate 
and pressing. Supplies could be sent for distribution to 



THE modj:r\ deluge. 47 

Buffalo Island, to I. N. Mangum, Mangum's Landing, and 
to J. F. Leslie & Co., Oldtown, for distribution on the west 
side of St. Francis River. 

(Signed) Jacob Sharp, County Clerk. 

Jos. A. Weak, Representative. 
Hemer Parr, Attorney. 



Tyronsa, Cross County, March i8. 
Gen. L. H. Mangum : I take it upon myself to inform 
you of the condition of the people of the Blackfish section 
of country. I v\'ent up this morning as far as Mr. Organ's 
and found thirteen refugees in his gin-house in a destitute 
condition. They need immediate relief. They are out of 
everything in the way of eatables, and eat the beef that 
was 

DROW^NED IX THE OVERFLOWS 

as it was their onl}?- chance. They manage to get a little 
corn from first one, then another, and grind it on a steel 
mill they have fixed up in the gin-house. There are about 
three hundred people, to my own knowledge, in the same 
fix, and they are bound to have relief from somewhere. 
They are entirely cut off from the Marion District. The 
leading men here don't seem to take any interest in them, 
and I take it upon myself to inform you of their condition. 
I let them have a barrel of meal and middling of meat out 
of my own to prolong life until they could get relief from 
somewhere. Can you not let tliem have five or ten barrels 
of meal and replace with Government provisions when an 
appropriation is made for them? If you can, let me know, 
and I will send down for it immediately. The water is 
falling nicely — 15 inches up to date. 

(Signed) Eli Bailes. 



48 THK MODERN J>EI.I:<;E. 

Lake Village, Chicot Co., Ark., March 18. 
To Gen. L. H. Mangum. 

Dear Sir : If the General Government sends any rations 
out to this overflowed county, I wish you would be kind 
enough to direct some to Lake Village. There is 

GREAT suffering 

among the whites and negroes. There has been some sent 
to Lema, but the destitute here are not relieved. Send to 
Vancluse Landing, and I will pay the freight for bringing 
it out here. The people need assistance at once. Hoping 
you will see to this. 

(Signed) Geo. J. Kruse, Postmaster. 



This is from Sheriff Haskins, of Mississippi County. 

Osceola, Mississippi Co., March 19. 
To Gen. L. H. Mangum. 

Dear Sir: Inclosed please find bills of supplies boa-- 
rovved of merchants here by order of the Relief Commit- 
tee ; also, letters from different parties in this county who 
are suffering. We have exhausted the supplies sent by 
you, also all that we could borrow, besides a great deal 
that has been given by private citizens. At the lowest esti- 
mate there are at least 300 people now in this county who 
are on the verge of starvation. Please send all you can 
possibly spare at your earliest convenience. 

(Signed) W, B. Haskins, Sheriff. 



SICKNESS, exile, DRUDGERY AND HUNGER. 

A strip of land about a mile long and 200 yards wide, 
on the Arkansas side, 120 miles south of Cairo, 111., found 
an anchorage for nine families, and such cattle and hogs 
as had been driven to this refuge, or had floated in on the 
bosom of the tide. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. j.q 

Completely exiled from the world, they watched with 
weary eyes their long delayed succor. 

Famine had left its marks of gaunt cheeks and tottering 
step, and the apparent hopelessness of their condition had 
well nigh driven them insane. The dead bodies of three 
children lay exposed, starvation and scarlet fever the 
cause. 

Several cases of pneumonia were found among the men 
and women. There had been in one of the families a 
hopeful birth, and the young mother, not yet out of dan- 
ger, did not repine. 

The anomoly of this strange sight was as striking as it 
was ambiguous. 

Their suffering and exile was accepted with a resigna- 
tion looked for in dumb brutes, and the relief afforded in 
the arrival of the United States Steamer Gen'l. Barnard, 
was accepted with an equally stoical indifference, and as 
a matter of course. 



RELIEF MEASURES. 

I have secured the following reply of the Secretary of 
War to the questions of the House of Representatives on 
the subject of the flood and forward same. 

The Secretary of War has replied to the resolution of 
the House of Representatives, asking for an estimate of 
persons made destitute by the overflow of the Mississippi, 
and how long it was thought they would have to be sup- 
ported, in which he states that the number of persons now 
receiving subsistence is about 85,000. The $100,000 ap- 
propriated sufficed to purchase 800,000 rations, and this 
supply was exhausted by the 20th in Arkansas, Mississippi 
and Louisiana, and would be in the other States affected 
about the 30th inst. No further demands are expected 
from Illinois or Kentucky, but from Missouri, Tennessee, 



50 ■ THE MODERN DELUGE. 

Arkansas and Mississippi the department has information 
that the need of assistance will continue for a period vari- 
ously estimated at from thirty to sixty days from date. 
No information on which to base all estimates as to time^ 
has yet been received from Louisiana, exxept that the char- 
acter of the disaster is the same as in Mississippi and Ar- 
kansas. A table was also submitted showing the number 
of rations sent to the States overflowed, from which the 
following figures are taken : 

Missouri, 26,000 rations to 22,000 destitute persons. 
Illinois, 36,000 rations to 20,000 destitute persons. 
Kentuck}', 1,500 rations to 800 destitute persons. 
Tennessee, 20,000 rations to 5,000 destitute persons. 
Mississippi, .250,000 rations to 30,000 destitute persons. 
Arkansas, 150,000 rations to 20,000 destitute persons. 
Louisiana, 216,000 rations to 25,000 destitute persons. 

The Secretary of War has also ordered 300,000 rations to 
be issued at New Orleans for Louisiana, 200,000 at Mem- 
phis for Mississippi, 50,000 at Helena for Arkansas, and 
20,000 each at Charleston, New Madrid and Gayoso for Ar- 
kansas. These are the first rations issued under the last 
appropriation of $ 150,000. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A flatboat is overhauled, occupied by two negroes. They 
hail from Capt. Willlis' place, and had left their families 
with nothing to eat. When asked how long they had been 
out, replied that they had rowed all night, in hopes of find- 
ing relief. It was 3 p. m. when the conversation took 
place. Their course had been southerly, and at times 
direct southwest, the current averaging nine miles an hour 
They were, at the time hailed, over 150 miles from starving 
families, and still aimlessly drifting further away. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 51 

The Willis place is situated a number of miles from the 
Sunflower, and entirely beyond the reach of yawls. 

THREE HUNDRED LABORERS 

wei-e employed on the plantation, most of them without 
any means of subsistence. Their houses were submerged, 
and many instances of their occupants perched on the ridge- 
poles of their houses were noticed. These people were 
assisted with bacon, cornmeal, and other rations, to last 
a ^veek by the Government Commission on board the 
steamer Anita. 

Passing through this district, I had the good fortune to 
encounter the Anita Commission, on board of which was 
Mr. Stevens, representative of the Globe-Democrat^ St. 
Louis. A thorough investigation had been made by this 
gentleman, and a report prepared for his paper, extracts 
from which I append : 

* ******** 

" This is a white settlement of small farmers in the 
vicinity of Holland Landing. They reported that some of 
their neighbors had gotten away. They had preefrred to 
remain a little longer, but were almost ready to evacuate. 
The water was stil{ rising, and the current had grown much 
stronger. The rafts swung about and tugged at their fast- 
enings. Among the trees the, water whirled and eddied, 
making navigation in the dug-outs dangerous. The houses 
built on stilts, which remained intact in the still water lower 
down the Sunflower and Yazoo, were found overturned 
floating about in the upper country. Possibly some one 
reading of the stock on rafts, and of the people starving, 
may wonder why the cattle are not killed to give the peo- 
ple something to eat. A glance at the animals would an- 
swer that question. They are skin and bones. The 
weather is very warm. Salt seems to have been entirely 
overlooked in the hurried flight from the houses. At nearl}; 
every stopping place an appeal was made for this article. 



52 THE MODKRN DELUGE. 

The animals, in their starved and feverish condition, would 
be unfit to eat, and the flesh would not keep twenty-four 
hours after slaughtering. The Taylor and Walker families 
were found in more than the average condition of distress. 
There were fourteen of them. All they had left in the 
world to eat was in a two-quart bucket. The men had 
turned this over to the women and children on the raft, and 
had settled dow^n to grim endurance of hunger. A week's 
supply to these men was dished out by the Quartermaster's 
assistants with liberal measure. * * * * 

Two miles up the river John Cleary, a new settler, came 
on board to urge immediate assistance. One of the rafts 
on which he had gotten his family and three or four cows 
was sinking. The logs had rolled out of position, and 
threatened to go down in eight feet of water. Clear}?^ was 
the only man in a family of eight. Capt. Chapman hastily 
got a crew into a yawl, and for twenty minutes the Anita 
men worked at raft repairing. Cleary had -gone into the 
swamp on a log, and worked in water to his arm-pits, get- 
ting out the material for the float to put his family on. 
When his raft was in shape it came out that the unfortu- 
nate people had been living on what little provisions they 
could borrow from the neighbors. They were absolutely 
without food when the Anita arrived. For several miles 
up the Sunflower, from the Cleary place, the houses were 
deserted. 

A settlement of Irish families was found in better shape 
than most of the negroes. They had built rafts and had 
got some of their stock on them, as well as their families. 
Their houses had been abandoned for some days. Pat. 
Devinney had lost twelve head of stock and Sam. Griffin 
thiit\-five. They had a dozen poor families, new settlers, 
living near them, with whom they had divided what little 
flour and meal was left. One of the neighbors, named 
Farm, had lost a boy by the overturning of a skiff. The 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 53 

water had risen five inches in the twenty-four hours pre- 
ceding the Anita's arrival. The Irishmen 

BEGGED EARNESTLY 

for a few nails, being fearful their rafts would go to pieces. 
They were dependent on wooden pins. The settlement 
numbered seventy-five people. They had come in, tempted 
by the free use of the land for several years for the clear- 
ing of it. Some were just getting well started, and the 
water had swept away everything. They all thought their 
lives were comparatively safe on the rafts, but begged that 
the boat pass them slowly. Rations were issued to keep 
them a week. Thomas L. Brown, an old Union soldier, 
was found to be the representative man in the next settle- 
ment of a dozen families. He served in the 2d Missouri 
Cavalry his full time and then finished the war with the 
15th Missouri Infantry. 

"There are forty head of stock lying out there in the 
water," he said. 

All of the men except Brown were away getting out logs 
to increase their raft room. The women and children were 
crowded together in a little hut built upon the floating logs. 
When the yawl struck the logs they shook in a suspiciously 
frail way. These people live in Sharkey County. Much 
of the previous work had been done in Sunflower and Ya- 
zoo Counties. The Brown Colony was made happy with 
twenty-five pounds of flonr. 

Upon returning to Vicksburg, I find the following report 
'from Capt. Lee, commander of the Anita : 

The Government boat Anita arrived from her mission up 
the Sunflower River at 11 A. m. to-day, March 23d. Capt. 
Lee, her commander, reports having distributed supplies 
to 1,918 people during the trip, and returned with 5,254 
pounds of meat, twent3^-four barrels of flour, and thirteen 
barrels of meal, which yet remain for further distribution. 



54 THE MODERN DELUGE, 

Rations were issued at the rate of 140 pounds of meat to 
every ten persons, upon which they are expected to subsist 
for two weeks. She will start during the night for St, 
Louis. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ACCURSED. 

At Bayou Lafourche, La., about forty miles from Lock- 
port, therere is an abode of 

FOURTEEN LEPERS. 

These miserable wretches have been proscribed for 
years. How they live is an enigma without solution. The 
curse of the Almighty has settled about and upon them, 
upon them, until they have been thoroughly damned, and 
exiled from the world. The few stray dollars that find 
the homes of these disease-reeking people, are forever lost 
to the world, as commercial intercourse has been prohibited. 

Their abodes are adjacent to the levee along the Missis- 
sippi River, on the Louisiana side. The flood, as if in re- 
venge against whoever or w^hatever located these lepers 
along its shores, rose in its wrath, and attempted their total 
annihilation. 

The picture presented to the invisible eye which beholds 
all things, as the deluge swept in and over them, sur- 
rounded as they were by all the horrors of a lingering 
death while facing the flood, would shock the sight of 
mortals. They fought with their teeth, and tore each 
other's flesh. Strangulation w-as preferred by some, as 
the receding w^aters demonstrate in leaving their bloated 
and blackened faces, grim evidences of their death. 
Drowning refugees, floating past the leper settlement, pre- 
ferred to go down in sight of the only green earth on the 
bosom of the Mississippi for hundreds of miles, rather 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 55 

than make a footing on this raised mound of earth. Their 
shrieks availed nothing to the passing Commissioners, bent 
on deeds of charity, benevolence and succor. 

They could see the day go out, in blood red sunsets, to 
be followed by nights of deepest gloom and despair, sink- 
ing hopes, and gradual desolation. 

Who can tell what in their heaits befell? Summer with 
its perfume laden winds, and the balmy days of their glori- 
ous winters, would pass before their drowning eyes — in 
mocking procession. Anything for life would be their cry, 
even a double curse of their loathsome disease — only to live. 
They would watch for some deliverance, with that despair in 
hope, — which ends in death. 

It is a chapter in the history of this flood. " What be- 
came of the lepers on that night of the rising of the 
waters ? " 

En route from the Crescent city north, I stopped at Mem- 
phis, Tenn., March 25th. To recapitulation the ground 
would be alike tedious to writer and reader. To demon- 
strate, however, the accuracy of the distressing facts as 
herein related in previous pages, I sight the following dis- 
patch secured at the office of the Memphis Avalanche the 
day of my arrival : 

An Avalanche s Helena (Ark.) special says the waters 
are falling slowly, but hunger and distress still reign. Plan- 
ters and country people will be as destitute as in the earliest 
settlement of the State. In Laconia circle, a particularly 
rich and flourishing section, there is great suffering exist- 
ing. The levee which broke there, built at a cost of $130,- 
000, was thought to be impregnable. This faith has cost a 
great loss of stock, for when the break came it was too 
late to save any considerable amount. Again, houses are 
being used for refuge both for cattle and human beings. 
In one house a whole family are living in the back part of 
their house while their mules quarter in the front room and 



56 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

on the porch. Lieuts. Satterlee and Richards left to-day 
to go to other points for further investigation, the former 
to Mississippi County, Ark., and the latter out on the Iron 
Mountain and Helena Railroad to Mariana, to consult with 
Col. Hewitt, sub-Commissioner of that district. The 
steamer Dick Jones, just returned from the sunk lands, re- 
ports the horrors there more and more terrible. The peo- 
ple were still eating drowned carcasses, and some few a 
little boiled corn. 

A meeting held at Austin, Miss., March 25, passed the 
following resolutions : 

Resolvedy That a committee of three be appointed to 
proceed to Memphis immediately, to request and urge upon 
Col. Hemingway, the United States authorities, or any 
other persons disposed to aid us, the immediate necessity 
of relief being furnished the people of this portion of our 
county. 

Resolved, That the amount of supplies furnished us here- 
tofore has been entirely inadequate ; that many who are 
suffering have received no relief at all, and all who have 
received anything have been but poorly supplied. 

Resolved, That unless relief is soon furnished, many will 
starve to death ; that they are on the verge of starvation 
now. 

Resolved, That a little timely assistance will save from 
starvation many horses, mules and cattle of all descriptions 
which are confined upon short strips of the levee without 
any food at all. Many have already died, and are dying 
every day. Unless relief is soon furnished, all in this con- 
dition will die in a short time from starvation, and we earn- 
estly urge and beg those who are living out of the water 
and have all the comforts of life around them to pity the 
condition of those we come to represent, and give from 
your bountiful store a small quantity to relieve from starva- 
tion both the human and the beast, who relies upon man 
for his provender. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 



57 



Resolved, That newspapers which represent that aid is 
not needed in this overflowed district, are guilty of con- 
duct that is inhuman in the extreme. 

This points to the unerring fact, that notwithstanding 
the lavish ouday of public, private, and Governmental 
commissions, the insiduous and fatal distress raised by 
this flood passed all boundaries and all attempts to sup- 
press it. 

The following appeal to the American people, through 
the mission known as the 

RED CROSS SOCIETY, 

in aid of the sufferers — it being the first action taken by 
that body — is worthy of record : 

TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 

Washington, March 23, — The President having signed 
the treaty of the Geneva Conference, and the Senate having, 
on the i6th inst., ratified the President's action^ the Amer- 
ican Association of the Red Cross, organized under the 
provisions of the said treaty, proposes at (»nce to send its 
agents among the sufferers by the late floods, with a view 
of ameliorating their condition, so far as can be done by 
human aid and the means at hand will admit of. Contri- 
butions are earnestly solicited. 

Remittances may be made to Hon. Chas. J. Folger, Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, Chairman of the Board of Trus- 
tees, or to his associates, Hons. Robert T. Lincoln and 
George B. Loring, Commissioner of Agriculture. 

. Contributions of wearing apparel, bedding and provi- 
sions should be addressed to " Red Cross Agent," at Mem. 
phis, Tenn., Vicksburg, Tenn., and Helena, Ark. 

Clara A. Barton, 
J. Bancroft Davis, 



58 THE MODERN DELUGE. 



Fred. Douglass, 

Alex. Y. P. Garnett, 

Mrs. Omer D. Conger, 

A. S. Solomons, 

Mrs. S. a. Martha Caulfield, 

R. D. Mussey. 



WHAT SHALL PREVENT A RECURRENCE OF THIS DELUGE? 

The wide-spreading disaster caused by the Mississippi 
River overflow will remain in the annals of modern history 
as something be3'Ond, and in excess of any similar over- 
flow by this river during the nineteenth century. It is 
mooted by the Eastern journals that the present levee sys- 
tem is of little or no protection against an uprising of the 
waters of this character, and the New York Commercial 
Bjilletin asserts that " Nature, in her might, has demon- 
strated the futility of resisting the floods by any such 
means," and that, " if anything is clearer than another," 
it is that "some more effective engineering contrivance 
than the ordinary levee system must somehow be devised.'' 
This is, to say the least, generalizing and insufficient data. 

Before the system is denounced as inadequate, it must be 
fairly tried. It seems it was not inadequate twenty-five 
years ago. Of course, howe^^er, the proposition to recon- 
struct the decaying barricades opens the question of their 
value, A leading opinion in the city of St. Louis asks : 
" Are they worth what they cost? Is it necessar}^ to the 
welfare of Arkansas, of Mississippi, or of Louisiana, to 
have the water kept out of the river bottoms ? Would not 
those States be as well off if their agriculture adapted 
itself to periodic inundations, or, in other words, if the 
occupants of the bottoms moved back to the hills, and left 
the river free to pour out its flood-tides on either hand, 
fertilizing the soil and improving the country for cultiva- 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 591 

tion, though rendering it uninhabitable? The notion that 
it would be wise to " let Nature take her course " is con- 
trary to the practice of generations, but it is seriously ad- 
vanced in some quarters, and may, perhaps, be given a 
hearing, though there is small prospect that it will be 
acted on." 

Assuming that the levees are to be restored, the question 
arises, "Who is to foot the bills?" We have heretofore 
expressed the opinion that Congress will take no action in 
this direction. If it fail to act, the States must do the best 
they can. The opposition to the levees in Congress is 
many-sided. 

There are, however, two Senators — Messrs. Garland 
and Jones — who have recently taken occasion to argue that 
the task is one for the Federal Government to undertake. 
Their views will not command enough support to bring 
Congress to act during this session, but they undoubtedly 
express the universal belief of the people and the States 
down the river. Mr. Jones says, for instance, that — 

" It is impossible for any perfect system of levees to be 
maintained by the individual action of the different States, 
or of the counties or municipalities, or by the individual 
enterprise of different citizens. There is not sufficient 
capital in, the South ; the property is not sufficiently valua- 
ble to bear the heavy taxation which would be necessary 
in order to protect it properly. We have tried it since the 
war, and we have again and again been overwhelmed by 
these devastating floods." 

This is, of course, aside from the point whether Con- 
gress is authorized to appropriate money to construct levees 
to protect the lands. 

But the friends of Congressional action put their appeal 
on other grounds than the protection of lands. In Mr. 
Garland's language, referring to the verdict of the IMissis-- 
sippi Commission, that: 



6o THE MODERN DELUGE. 

"A levee system promotes and facilitates commerce, 
trade and the postal service:" "We have, by the testi- 
mony, a direct improvement of the commerce, a direct im- 
provement of the navigation, a direct improvement of the 
postal service — three causes of jurisdiction that this Fed- 
eral Government- has, and no one else. This Government 
can build these levees, and has the authority. I could, if 
necessary, read authority after authority to substantiate 
the position I have taken in reference to the question of 
power. The Supreme Court has reiterated and repeated 
that doctrine time and again." 

This opinion of the Arkansas Senator's may not be con- 
clusive, but it is a forcible statement of one side of the 
case. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE SITUATION. 

I have no means at hand to ascertain the amount of ra- 
tions or total appropriations of the Government to the dis- 
tressed country. As it will require the assistance of the 
Government, or some other source of supplies, for at least 
four weeks longer, any figures at this time on the subject 
would be premature. While everything has been done for 
the distressed that could by any means be controlled and 
sent them, there will be found, later on, that a woful 
amount of unrelieved distress existed. 



THE CRESCENT CITY, 

The part taken by the Municipality of the city of New 
Orleans, and its generous, sympathetic, warm-hearted peo- 
ple during this carnage of destruction by the floods, stands 
symbolic of the many charitable deeds, public and private, 
that have long since been enrolled upon the escutcheon of 
one of the fairest cities in the country. 



THE MODKRN DELUGE. 6l 

The marriage feast of the Carnival was scarcely cold, ere 
the groaning boards were stripped, and the knightly sup- 
porters of that ancient pleasure-god were fighting the rush- 
ing waters at the levee protection of the city. 

All commercial and social intercourse was a matter to 
transform itself into wide-spreading relief and life-giving 
succor. 

For weeks it figuratively stood waist deep in the strug- 
gling floods which fought for the total annihilation of the 
city. With no cessation the nights and days moved in 
their cycle, each in turn reflecting the horrors of that pos- 
sibility total destruction. To exist under such mental and 
physical strains, with the attending knowledge that a com- 
mercial paralysis encircled the city, is to possess the Spartan 
qualities of man the days Theomopala boasted of. 

As is usual in such public calamities, the half of the Cres- 
cent city's magnamity in this crisis will never be told. But 
its warm hearted people are stirred with the knowledge that 
their succor and relief went out to their own kind; that the 
fraternal bond of sympathy which they sent up and along 
the banks of that deluged country, and throughout the blos- 
soming Valley of the Mississippi was given to those in com- 
mon with themselves, indigent to the social and political 
structures of their country and soil. 

But the mantle of relief is tailing from the hands of an in- 
dulgent Providence. The waters at this time of writing are 
slowly but surely receeding, and the drenched earth appears 
in sight again. 

Death lines the boundary of this, the greatest flood of the 
Christian Era, but its skeleton frame will soon be buried 
'neath blossoming boughs and the milky cotton ball. 

Contentment, prosperity and wealth will soon sing the 
surcease of summer, and plenty fill the land so ruthlessly laid 
waste by the floods. 



62 • THE MODERN DELUGE. 



FALL OF THE DELUGE. 

The loss by the floods of the Ohio & Mississippi rivers will 
never be computed. 

It would be next to impossible, if not entirely so, to sum 
up the ravages of the waters of the Mississippi as it swept 
•down and over an estimated area of 

75,000 SQUARE MILES IN EXTENT. 

Habitations, out-buildings, farm-implements, cotton-gins, 
stock, and many lives, have gone Gulfward in the overflow. 

The surface of the earth stretching south frona Cairo, III., 
to the Gulf presents the sickening aspect of a vast plain 
swept by desolation and death. 

Tons of mirery and sandy deposits have been lodged upon 
fields sown with the cereal grains and planted with the great 
staple of the South, cotton seed. 

For a distance of 700 miles the shores are dotted at fre- 
quent intervals with the rotting remains of beasts, household 
goods, farm machinery and dwellings. The interiors back- 
for 20 miles, on either side, along this entire distance are sad 
spectacles of distress and utter ruin. Forced back by the 
rising waters along the low bank level of the river, the ref- 
ugees fought step by step until surrounded by the rushing 
floods they are driven to tree and house tops to be finally 
starved and drowned. 

Days and nights of exposure have stricken thousands with 
paralysis, pneumonia and other lingering but deadly ail- 
ments. Indeed, the fair country of South land, along the 
banks of this great river, has become a vast sepulckre, for 
the remains of man, beast, and commerce. 



THE MODERN DELUGE. 6^ 

The moral of this scourge, if so pleasant a view can be 
taken of what seems to have been aching to a curse from the 
Almighty, must be sought for in the apathy of a government 
which receives annual tithes to the amount of millions from 
the very spots that have, in many instances, been swept from 
existence, and in all instances suffered irretrievable damage. 

Capital and a herculean enterprise have been lodged 
upon the banks of the Mississippi at the present site of the 
city of St. Louis, for nearly three quarters of a century. This 
leading commercial centre of the West annually forwards 
along the waterway of the Mississippi river and its tributaries 
hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the various products 
indigent to the manufacturer, planter and the vast number of 
mercantile institutions, stretched over a distance of 1,200 
miles to the Gulf. 

The importance of a centre that yearly demonstrates its 
commercial position in the grand congress of the world's 
greatest seats of commerce, should make itself felt at the 
doors of our national capitol when asking for protection 
against the oft repeated floods that lay waste her markets 
and paralyze her commercial life. 

Upon the principle that the past has always been outlived 
in the success of the present and magnificient promises of 
the immediate future, the horrors and distress attendant upon 
these overflows are easily and conveniently forgotton and 
nothing is done. 

Upon the Ohio river, which becomes a tributary of the 
Mississippi at Cairo, 111., the same sad spectacle of desolation 
can be witnessed. 

Three cities, with a total population of quite three quarters 
of a million, find a large per cent, of their revenues emin- 
ating from their water fronts. Their fleets number hun- 
dreds of boats, representing millions of dollars of investments. 
A total suppression of commerce on the river ensues during 
these floods. The loss incommutable. 



C>4 THE MODERN DELUGE. 

A government that lies in wait for its tolls has left the frail 
supports of this transcontinental highway to the seas un- 
guarded, to go down in the first assault of the floods. It has 
been accepted, as a matter of course, that ages have passed 
with only spasmodic recurrences of these playful features, 
to light up the horrors of every day calamities. Hundreds 
of lives and millions upon millions of property are annually 
exposed to these destructive overflows, and no action has as 
yet assumed even definite shape from which it is safe to 
argue anything will be done. The waters will find their nor- 
mal level. The dead, such as are not destroyed by the 
winged carion of the air, will find a hidden resting place. 
The ground will blossom and bear again its fruits, and 
grasses and cotton, and nature will smile over the ghastly 
results of this Modern Deluge. 

Walt. J. Raymond. 



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